ScreenCloud Allows You to Take Screenshots And Save to The Cloud [Ubuntu]

There are tons of ways to take screenshot in Linux. You can either use the “PrintScreen” button on your keyboard, or use the comprehensive and feature-rich Shutter to do the job. Alternatively, if you are looking for a screen capture tool that can sync your screenshots to the cloud, ScreenCloud could be the one for you. ScreenCloud is an easy to use screenshot tool. Once installed, it will appear as a tray applet in the taskbar. You can either click on the icon to take a screenshot or use the pre-defined hotkey and you can decide if you want to upload the screenshots to the cloud or save as a local file.

Installation

ScreenCloud is available for Windows and Ubuntu. Note that I mentioned only Ubuntu and not Linux because it is only available in the Ubuntu Software Center now. To install in Ubuntu, you just have to open the Ubuntu Software Center and search for “ScreenCloud”. It will require you to sign in to your UbuntuOne account and authorize the payment, though it costs nothing.

Usage

Once installed, you can run it like any other application. At the first run, it will prompt you to create a ScreenCloud account. This is purely optional, but you will need an account if you want to upload your screenshots to the cloud.

It will then walk you through a series of steps and one of them is the pre-defined shortcut keys for taking screenshots.

This is what you will see when it is running in the taskbar.

To take a screenshot, you can either press the shortcut key:

Shift + Alt + 1: Capture Full Screen

Shift + Alt + 2: Capture Selection

Shift + Alt + 3: Capture Window

or right-click at the tray icon and select the necessary action.

Once the screen is captured, you have an option to upload to ScreenCloud, save as local file, or even upload to a remote server via FTP/SFTP.

Preferences

In the Preferences section, you can configure whether to capture the window border (for “Capture Window” option) and the file format to capture the screen. It supports only JPG and PNG. At the Hotkey tab, you can change the default shortcut keys to your own. Rather than “Alt + Shift + 3”, I have changed it to “Shift + Ctrl + 3” for easier access.

Conclusion

As mentioned above, there are plenty of ways to do a screen capture in Linux and the easiest is definitely pressing the “PrintScreen” button. One thing good about ScreenCloud is that it allows you to upload your screenshots to the cloud, either to the ScreenCloud server or via FTP/SFTP. It is also a lightweight application that doesn’t take up plenty of resources. It will be great if it can support other image hosting sites like Flickr, Imgur or 500px, and also available for other Linux distro. Other than that, it is really a handy nice-to-have screen capture tool.